For those interested in why we can't just encourage native-born Americans to have more babies, two facts to recognize. First, US fertility is 1.66. No pro-natal program anywhere in the world has raised fertility from under 1.7 to 2.1 or higher (the level needed just for replacement. To get population growth it would have to go to 2.4 or higher). As long as women need to work full-time to contribute to family incomes, most don't want any more than 2 kids. Given that others have zero or one, the average remains below 2.0. No level of support has changed this. NO COUNTRY IN EUROPE has fertility above 1.9, despite a plethora of programs. Hungary's program has only raised fertility from 1.25 in 2010 to 1.55 in in 2019; still much lower than in the US! Second, even if we could raise fertility, that would not start boosting the labor force for almost 20 years (kids have to be raised and educated before they can work). Immigrants start working from day 1. They provide immediate benefits to the labor force, social security revenues, rents, etc.
To your first point, you argue that it would be incredibly difficult to raise birth rates because "women need to work full-time to contribute to family incomes." To that I propose that we see a problem here. Perhaps we should be working on creating a situation where we can give families the opportunity to live on a single income. I'm not sure how that can effectively be done (not going to claim to be an expert in the field of economics). But you have pointed out that there is a problem here, and it's that it's extremely difficult for a family to live off a single income. But I think the reason for that problem is largely in your second objection to the idea of raising birth rates.
"... even if we could raise fertility, that would not start boosting the labor force for almost 20 years..." This may be true, but why do we constantly need to increase the labor force? Should we, as a people, effectively be subject to an economic system? Or should we, as a people, build an economy that is subject to us. The reality about the system we have is that it's predicated on constant economic growth through a constant increase in the labor force. I would argue that this was largely the reason behind the Women's Rights Movements of the past. It never really had anything to do with women's liberation, but rather more to do with the need to constantly increase the labor force. The problem with this is that you end up with many women, for example, who have worked incredibly hard during their prime child-bearing years only to find out that they can't have a baby anymore because they've let that small window of opportunity to pass them by. And this inevitably leads to depression in these women. Why? Well, it's only a natural bodily response. I'd say it's the way God made us. So I have to ask the question: Is this what we want for society? For women, particularly, to be depressed because they allowed their prime childbearing years to pass them by in the name of making spreadsheets for some faceless corporation that ultimately doesn't care for that woman?
The reality is that we, as a society, need to really reconsider what's going on here. I posit that this is not "liberty" but rather fealty to a system that is willing to do away with individual workers on a whim.
I understand the appeal of the numbers, but we need to get to the heart of the issue here. It's not about economic growth. There's far more to life than the need to increase the GDP in a country by boosting the labor force.
I feel as though a mass number of people liberal or conservative would agree that Immigration is a good thing! it gets to become a problem when too many people are coming in, because a lot of the stats that you gave were about the people who were returned not how many crossed the border, Biden might return 600,000 illegals, but how many are allowed to stay due to an unsecure border? it may be true that Obama returned more than Trump, but how many people tried to cross when Trump was president. probably less than when Obama was. The more people that try to cross the easier it is to send more people back.
dont see why we cant have economic policys that enable millenials that already live in america to have kids. this article is globalist gas lighting at its finest.
Jim, why can't we encourage people within the countries to have more babies? It's been done in the past in America, and it's currently being done in elsewhere as we speak (Hungary has a particularly intriguing program for encouraging an increase in the birth rate).
So rather than telling people that they have meaningless buzz words, how about actually addressing the question? You're "arguments" keeping putting more fuel on that fire that's going on, and the "unpopulists" refuse to see why naming people names (almost always unfounded) might make people more angry and push people even further into the allegedly terrifying populist worldview.
I never said anything about not being "allowed" to have more babies. I was merely suggesting that we bring in policies that encourage more births. (please note that I never mentioned anything about race, but I digress. I suppose people always assume it's a racial issue when suggesting increasing birth rates.)
I have a couple simple questions to ask Mr. Goldstone. And maybe he can explain the matter further.
What is America anyway? What/who are Americans?
The reason I ask the first question is because there seems to be an assumption (please correct me if I'm wrong) that "America" is merely the institutions that happen to be in this land that we call America. And with that assumption, I can totally see why the argument can be made that we ultimately need more people to ensure that America (the institutions, that is) remains the same (more or less, particularly in regards to this thing we call "freedom" [another institution, I think?]). The problem that I see, and that many people in the "populist" realm see is that America is more than just its institutions. Those institutions didn't just come out of thin air. They were built by people (of a certain tradition... which comes from a certain group) and THAT matters. What happens when those people who come from said tradition are effectively taken out of the equation (in this case, out of the foundation upon which America was built)? Will America continue to be the America that we know? Or does America (the institutions) become something else? It's just a simple observation, but it is quite noticeable how much America has changed over the last 50 years. And not for the better. The people are suffering at an all-time high (drug use is at an all-time high, prescription and non-prescription alike... mostly to treat depression). And we're going to try to argue that more of the same is somehow 'good' for America? Well, maybe for the institutions that America has in the land, but I would argue that not for the people. You like to throw out a lot of numbers and such, but I'd recommend getting out of your posh area and go to the run-down areas of the country (in fact, there are probably some in your own town) and try to tell me that, "well, the data shows that more of the same is good."
As for my second question, "what/who are Americans?", that question is particularly important because, ultimately, if everyone can be an "American", doesn't it then make "being American" ultimately pointless? If everyone can become X, then X doesn't have much meaning. So, you discuss about how more immigration is good for "Americans", but those immigrants in turn become the "Americans" that you claim more immigration is good for. Do you understand what I'm pointing out here? It's a vicious cycle and you've made the state of being "American" pointless. All it comes to mean is someone who just so happens to live on this particularly piece of land. That's literally all.
To sum it all up, people are more than economic units. They are more than mere data points on a graph. They are people with values, with faith, with drive, with dignity. These things matter. I don't appreciate (and I'm sure many others don't either) being treated as just another data point, just another economic unit. This is why populism is so appealing because it treats people as people rather than this mere statistical anomaly. We are more than that, and we're tired of being treated as such.
Thank you to the Unpopulist for publishing these articles as it allows me to see the problems that are truly at the heart of current issues today. I love liberty. And I love the people who seek it. But I fail to see how we have more liberty today than we did 50 years ago. To paraphrase someone I admire, slavery was never really abolished, it just took on a different form.
For those interested in why we can't just encourage native-born Americans to have more babies, two facts to recognize. First, US fertility is 1.66. No pro-natal program anywhere in the world has raised fertility from under 1.7 to 2.1 or higher (the level needed just for replacement. To get population growth it would have to go to 2.4 or higher). As long as women need to work full-time to contribute to family incomes, most don't want any more than 2 kids. Given that others have zero or one, the average remains below 2.0. No level of support has changed this. NO COUNTRY IN EUROPE has fertility above 1.9, despite a plethora of programs. Hungary's program has only raised fertility from 1.25 in 2010 to 1.55 in in 2019; still much lower than in the US! Second, even if we could raise fertility, that would not start boosting the labor force for almost 20 years (kids have to be raised and educated before they can work). Immigrants start working from day 1. They provide immediate benefits to the labor force, social security revenues, rents, etc.
To your first point, you argue that it would be incredibly difficult to raise birth rates because "women need to work full-time to contribute to family incomes." To that I propose that we see a problem here. Perhaps we should be working on creating a situation where we can give families the opportunity to live on a single income. I'm not sure how that can effectively be done (not going to claim to be an expert in the field of economics). But you have pointed out that there is a problem here, and it's that it's extremely difficult for a family to live off a single income. But I think the reason for that problem is largely in your second objection to the idea of raising birth rates.
"... even if we could raise fertility, that would not start boosting the labor force for almost 20 years..." This may be true, but why do we constantly need to increase the labor force? Should we, as a people, effectively be subject to an economic system? Or should we, as a people, build an economy that is subject to us. The reality about the system we have is that it's predicated on constant economic growth through a constant increase in the labor force. I would argue that this was largely the reason behind the Women's Rights Movements of the past. It never really had anything to do with women's liberation, but rather more to do with the need to constantly increase the labor force. The problem with this is that you end up with many women, for example, who have worked incredibly hard during their prime child-bearing years only to find out that they can't have a baby anymore because they've let that small window of opportunity to pass them by. And this inevitably leads to depression in these women. Why? Well, it's only a natural bodily response. I'd say it's the way God made us. So I have to ask the question: Is this what we want for society? For women, particularly, to be depressed because they allowed their prime childbearing years to pass them by in the name of making spreadsheets for some faceless corporation that ultimately doesn't care for that woman?
The reality is that we, as a society, need to really reconsider what's going on here. I posit that this is not "liberty" but rather fealty to a system that is willing to do away with individual workers on a whim.
I understand the appeal of the numbers, but we need to get to the heart of the issue here. It's not about economic growth. There's far more to life than the need to increase the GDP in a country by boosting the labor force.
I feel as though a mass number of people liberal or conservative would agree that Immigration is a good thing! it gets to become a problem when too many people are coming in, because a lot of the stats that you gave were about the people who were returned not how many crossed the border, Biden might return 600,000 illegals, but how many are allowed to stay due to an unsecure border? it may be true that Obama returned more than Trump, but how many people tried to cross when Trump was president. probably less than when Obama was. The more people that try to cross the easier it is to send more people back.
The problem is not the legal immigrants, but the illegal immigrants.
Now I have to write a rhetorical analysis on this, so wish me luck.
dont see why we cant have economic policys that enable millenials that already live in america to have kids. this article is globalist gas lighting at its finest.
Thanks for all the meaningless buzz words nativist boi
Jim, please cool it. I am going to delete your last remark.
Jim, why can't we encourage people within the countries to have more babies? It's been done in the past in America, and it's currently being done in elsewhere as we speak (Hungary has a particularly intriguing program for encouraging an increase in the birth rate).
So rather than telling people that they have meaningless buzz words, how about actually addressing the question? You're "arguments" keeping putting more fuel on that fire that's going on, and the "unpopulists" refuse to see why naming people names (almost always unfounded) might make people more angry and push people even further into the allegedly terrifying populist worldview.
Amazing.
You didn't make an "argument" lol. You think whites aren't allowed to have "babies". Great Replacement huh?
I never said anything about not being "allowed" to have more babies. I was merely suggesting that we bring in policies that encourage more births. (please note that I never mentioned anything about race, but I digress. I suppose people always assume it's a racial issue when suggesting increasing birth rates.)
I have a couple simple questions to ask Mr. Goldstone. And maybe he can explain the matter further.
What is America anyway? What/who are Americans?
The reason I ask the first question is because there seems to be an assumption (please correct me if I'm wrong) that "America" is merely the institutions that happen to be in this land that we call America. And with that assumption, I can totally see why the argument can be made that we ultimately need more people to ensure that America (the institutions, that is) remains the same (more or less, particularly in regards to this thing we call "freedom" [another institution, I think?]). The problem that I see, and that many people in the "populist" realm see is that America is more than just its institutions. Those institutions didn't just come out of thin air. They were built by people (of a certain tradition... which comes from a certain group) and THAT matters. What happens when those people who come from said tradition are effectively taken out of the equation (in this case, out of the foundation upon which America was built)? Will America continue to be the America that we know? Or does America (the institutions) become something else? It's just a simple observation, but it is quite noticeable how much America has changed over the last 50 years. And not for the better. The people are suffering at an all-time high (drug use is at an all-time high, prescription and non-prescription alike... mostly to treat depression). And we're going to try to argue that more of the same is somehow 'good' for America? Well, maybe for the institutions that America has in the land, but I would argue that not for the people. You like to throw out a lot of numbers and such, but I'd recommend getting out of your posh area and go to the run-down areas of the country (in fact, there are probably some in your own town) and try to tell me that, "well, the data shows that more of the same is good."
As for my second question, "what/who are Americans?", that question is particularly important because, ultimately, if everyone can be an "American", doesn't it then make "being American" ultimately pointless? If everyone can become X, then X doesn't have much meaning. So, you discuss about how more immigration is good for "Americans", but those immigrants in turn become the "Americans" that you claim more immigration is good for. Do you understand what I'm pointing out here? It's a vicious cycle and you've made the state of being "American" pointless. All it comes to mean is someone who just so happens to live on this particularly piece of land. That's literally all.
To sum it all up, people are more than economic units. They are more than mere data points on a graph. They are people with values, with faith, with drive, with dignity. These things matter. I don't appreciate (and I'm sure many others don't either) being treated as just another data point, just another economic unit. This is why populism is so appealing because it treats people as people rather than this mere statistical anomaly. We are more than that, and we're tired of being treated as such.
Thank you to the Unpopulist for publishing these articles as it allows me to see the problems that are truly at the heart of current issues today. I love liberty. And I love the people who seek it. But I fail to see how we have more liberty today than we did 50 years ago. To paraphrase someone I admire, slavery was never really abolished, it just took on a different form.